Posts Tagged ‘greed’

It was “pretty distasteful”, says ambassador, how Blair “used the ticket of Middle East Envoy” to make commercial deals with governments.

THE SCALE of Tony Blair’s globe-trotting is exposed for the first time in secret documents that suggest the taxpayer is paying up to £16,000 a week to help the former prime minister build his business empire.

Documents seen by The Telegraph contain details of Mr Blair’s travels around the world, accompanied by a squad of police bodyguards, flying on private jets and staying in five-star hotels.

The files suggest Mr Blair has used identical trips to carry out both private business meetings and talks in his capacity as Quartet Representative to the Middle East – leaving him open to accusations of a potential conflict of interest.

The documents show how Mr Blair has been visiting up to five countries a week – at a potential cost of between £14,000 and £16,000 to the public purse.

One British ambassador described how a number of companies linked to Mr Blair, including his wife’s law firm, were “sniffing for work” in one European country.

During the trips Mr Blair must be accompanied by a team of Metropolitan Police officers, whose salary, overtime, expenses, travel and meals are picked up by the taxpayer. The most complex trips involve eight officers of varying ranks, while at least four remain at his homes in Britain. Each of the 12 officers is likely to be earning at least £56,000, but can earn upwards of £70,000 due to the overtime they accumulate on foreign trips.

Documents seen by The Telegraph as part of an investigation into Mr Blair’s business interests show how he has nurtured a network of some of the world’s most influential leaders and businessmen to build up a roster of clients paying tens of millions of pounds for his advice.

However, the disclosures prompted suggestions that his paid work had created what appears to be a series of conflicts of interest with his unpaid envoy role, from which he will step down at the end of this month after eight years.

One ambassador who attended meetings with Mr Blair on his Quartet work said the apparent conflict was “pretty distasteful”, adding that Mr Blair “used the ticket of the Middle East Envoy and Quartet” to deal with governments on a commercial basis.

The Telegraph investigation revealed how:

Mr Blair stays with his entourage in five-star hotels around the world, with each room for his police bodyguards costing the taxpayer an estimated £1,000 on multi-leg trips;

The former prime minister travels on a series of private jets, in some cases lent by clients and governments;

Mr Blair secured a £1 million private contract with the World Bank, while simultaneously working with the Bank in his role at Middle East envoy;

He struck lucrative commercial deals with Abu Dhabi while he was also in negotiations with the emirate as Middle East envoy over $45 million (£29 million) funding for the Palestinian Authority;

Mr Blair’s team has sought assistance from British officials in order to further his private business interests, including briefings on countries including Canada, Albania and Macedonia;

In several cases the influential figures Mr Blair meets on private business trips are the same people who are his contacts in his official role as Quartet envoy;

Andrew Bridgen, a Conservative MP who has previously criticised Mr Blair’s wide-ranging business interests, called for Mr Blair to declare fully all his dealings. He said: “Mr Blair has consistently blurred the line between his official and commercial activities, while his security entourage has incurred huge expenses for the British taxpayer.

“It is not appropriate for a man who has held the highest office in the land and has been privy to every one of our nation’s secrets to undertake work for a foreign power.”

Chris Doyle, the director of The Council for Arab-British Understanding, said: “Mr Blair needs to be transparent about his business activities, otherwise he faces the risk of being accused of having conflicts of interest.”

The investigation gives the most detailed picture yet of Mr Blair’s crowded international itinerary. The files show how he is shepherded around America on a speaking tour, and crams meetings with ministers and business leaders into 24-hour visits to Abu Dhabi – one of his biggest clients.

The total cost of wages and expenses for the 12-strong team guarding him would amount to between £14,000 and £16,000 for each week he is travelling, based on a conservative estimate of the number of officers remaining in Britain, and a reported figure of £5,000 expenses per week.

It is likely that Mr Blair picks up the cost of his bodyguards’ travel when they fly on private jets. In one week in February 2012 Mr Blair travelled to Israel in his role as Middle East envoy and then flew on to UAE, Qatar, China and Kazakhstan where he conducted a mixture of charity work and private business.

He stayed with his entourage at hotels including the five-star Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi and the Four Seasons in Doha.

Mr Blair has also been nurturing a relationship with Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia.

At one meeting in January 2011, apparently attended by Mr Blair at least partly in his capacity as Quartet envoy, he was accompanied by Stephan Kriesel, the then head of his government advisory practice.

A spokesman for Mr Blair said that Mr Kriesel “happened to be travelling with him”.

The Telegraph’s investigation also reveals how Mr Blair’s firm, Tony Blair Associates, now has a £1.1 million contract with the World Bank to carry out consultancy work, after he enjoyed a close relationship with the Bank as Quartet envoy. A member of the World Bank staff was seconded to work in his Quartet office.

As part of its contract with the Bank, Tony Blair Associates has provided a team of consultants to advise the Romanian government on setting up a “delivery unit”.

The Bank said Mr Blair’s firm offered “the most competitive price” of five competing bids. A spokesman for Mr Blair said the work was “not for profit”.

In October 2013 Nicholas Cannon, the British ambassador to Albania, told Whitehall mandarins that several “Blair-related outfits” were “sniffing for work in Albania”, including Cherie Blair’s law firm Omnia Strategy.

A spokesman for Mr Blair said: “There are no conflicts of interests with any of Mr Blair’s work, including his role as Quartet representative.”

“Clear policies and procedures” were in place to prevent conflicts, including a clause in his commercial contracts stating he will not undertake work that conflicts with his Quartet responsibilities.”

The spokesman added that Abu Dhabi’s funding for the Palestinian Authority came from a “separate organisation” to Mubadala, the sovereign wealth fund that Mr Blair advises.

She added that Mr Blair had “absolutely never used his position as a Quartet representative to further business interests” and suggested that it was in “the country’s interests” for Foreign Office officials to support Mr Blair’s work abroad.

Spokesmen for Mr Blair and Scotland Yard declined to comment on his security arrangements.

Around 150 people joined a protest outside The Black Cap public house in Camden yesterday after it closed suddenly and without warning last week. The long running LGBT venue opened in the 1960s, surviving throughout the days when gay people faced prosecution. Now it is falling victim to rampant gentrification that respects neither culture or history and seeks only to make as much money as possible for greedy property developers.

Speaking at the protest drag artist Titti La Camp, a former performer at the pub, said 10 gay venues had closed in central London since the current Tory government weren’t elected. In an all too familiar story, those trying to save The Black Cap believe it is likely to be converted into yet more luxury flats that nobody local can afford.

A few hundred yards away a large part of Camden Market is currently a building site, awaiting being converted…

But as we now learn, New Era Estate is only the tip of a very dirty iceberg.

Hendon, a council estate given away to a property company, together with a pile of cash, to demolish the council housing, to build tower blocks for sale to dirty money.

What Mayor Boris classes as brown field sites, is land occupied by council housing.

I am used to fighting and exposing local authority corruption, but even I have not seen corruption on this scale.

This though is not new. A decade or so ago, I was working with squatters on the Pepys Estate, who fighting something similar. A council estate that when it was built, the people worked with the architects. But, you cannot have council tenants occupying prime land on the bank of The Thames overlooking Canary Wharf, that will never do, and they were kicked out.

Shirley Porter found guilty of gerrymandering in Westminster, escaped a prison sentence when she fled the country.

Please sign the petition to support those losing their home thanks to local council corruption.

The top 10% having as much as the bottom 90% would be bad enough. The top 1% having as much as as the bottom 90% even worse. We are facing the top 0.1% having as much as the bottom 90%.

The wealth distribution is even more shocking if we compare the top 1% with the bottom 90% (look at the bars at the top of each graph).

Click on each graph to pull it up for closer scrutiny.

If monkeys are treated unfairly, one getting a greater reward than another they get very angry.

If children in a playground, one grabs all the toys, do we stand idly by? No, we intervene, we reprimand the greedy child, we redistribute the toys.

Why then do we stand idly by when the rich are so greedy? Why are there not riots in the streets?

The rich fear riots. More security guards employed in USA than High School teachers. London Mayor Boris has bought German water canon, but not (yet) got the authorisation to deploy.

Can we crowd fund a People’s Water Canon and use to defend the People’s Revolution?

With most things, we are satiated, we know when we have had enough. We eat a meal, we push the plate to one side when we have eaten our fill.

Money is the exception, we are never satiated, the more we have, the more we want.

When the Rachman Benyon Brothers bought the New Era Estate in Hoxton, an estate built in the 1930s to provide affordable housing, their first act was to jack up the rents. Ninety two families are facing eviction, as they will not be able to afford to pay the new rents, more in some cases than their salary.

Austerity is not working, but then it was never intended to work. It was an excuse for Shock Doctrine, slash and burn of public services, cuts to benefits, closure of public libraries, privatisation of the health service, bedroom tax. It is all part of the transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich.

Speaking to the CBI, David Cameron has promised more austerity, more cuts. His clones, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband have promised more of the same, whatever the Tories cut, they can cut better.

Only the Green Party are offering a genuine alternative, which is why they are barred from any discussion. Austerity is not inevitable, there are alternatives, but is is edited out of existence by the mainstream political-media establishment.

Where was Ed Miliband when activists occupied Parliament Square in solidarity with activists on the streets of Hong Kong?

The fastest growing party in Spain is Podemos, they have grown out of Occupy, they are grass roots, anti-austerity, unlike the main parties, they are not owned by Big Businesses.

In the US, whoever wins an election, is whoever spends the most money.

Why bother with an election, why not let accountants declare the winner?

And yet, if we look at USA, beyond the midterm elections, at what other measures people voted for, they voted for anti-austerity measures, measures to benefit the environment, measures to benefit people.

When Barack Obama rode into town on a wave of popularity, it was followed by six wasted years. The banks were broke, the car companies were broke. Instead of bailing them out with public money, they should have been broken up, public-controlled companies put in their place, companies that were fulfilling a useful purpose. Instead public money was thrown at them and it was business as usual.

Growth has flat lined for years, real wages have flat lined for years. A magnifying glass is taken out to magnify statistical noise and claim, we have growth. Statistical noise on wages, claimed to be a growth in wages. But who does it include, exclude the bankers, greedy property developers, and average wages are not increasing.

Jobs are increasing, but not well paid, skilled jobs, jobs you can take a pride in. The jobs that are increasing are the part-time, temporary, de-skilled, zero-hours McJobs. Jobs that rob the soul.

We are told we are all in it together.

Are we all in it together when Environment Secretary Eric Pickles spends (or to be correct we spend on his behalf) £500,000 on new limousines in three years?

Eighty five people, the richest on the planet, who could easily fit in a double-decker bus, have as much wealth as the poorest half of humanity.

Public intervention is heretical, the free market must reign, unless it is transferring public money to the banks, then the dogma, public bad private good, the arbitary, set in stone, there is no alternative, can be broken.

And yet we do have rules, we do have public intervention. We have international trade rules, international trade treaties, for example NAFTA, overseen by WTO, which transfers power from the public sector to the private sector, from sovereign governments to global corporations.

Currently TTIP, which will result in a massive transfer of power from sovereign governments to global corporations is being negotiated in secret.

Apart from it being unfair, transference of wealth from the poor to the rich, it is also trashing the planet rendering it uninhabitable.

Which brings me back to my original question, why do we tolerate it, why is there not revolution?

No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. — Franklin D Roosevelt (1933, Statement on National Industrial Recovery Act)

The first TED talk by venture capitalist and entrepreneur Nick Hanauer was banned by TED. It was claimed to be mediocre. Could it be because he told the truth? It also raises a big question mark against TED.

Forbes published a garbage piece, which I will not even lower myself to address, in which it was claimed, not mediocre, but a display of ignorance.

A couple of weeks ago, the French Economics Minister told the truth on failed French economics policy, austerity, tax breaks for the rich, cuts for the poor. The reaction of the unpopular French President (20% approval rating) was to fire the entire government. Should it not be the President who resigned?

Across southern Europe, austerity is not working.

Pay the rich more and they work harder. Pay the poor less and they work harder. Strange that.

We have seen wages flat line for nearly a decade, ever since the economic crisis hit, wages were not much better before. If we take account of inflation, then wages have gone down.

When productivity goes up, we either need fewer people or we need to consume more.

If we increase productivity year on year, such that after ten years, productivity had doubled, we are either producing twice as much stuff with the same number of people or half the number of people are required to produce the same amount of stuff.

Stuff in general we do not want or need, stuff that has environmental costs of extraction, manufacture, shipping and distribution, stuff that we possess for six months, stuff that then has to be disposed of, incurring yet further environmental costs. These externalised costs, which are not reflected in purchase price, we all pay for.

The rich do not create jobs for the simple reason there is a limit to the amount of money they can spend, how many yachts, mansions, luxury cars.

Quantitative easing has been a massive failure, for the simple reason it has gone to the bankers and the rich.

We need wealth redistribution, but the reason why we do not have wealth redistribution, is because we would be redistributing the wealth of the rich, and they being rich and powerful own the politicians.

Had money been given to the poor, they would have, if only because they are living on the breadline, spent that money in the economy.

We also need progressive taxation where the rich pay a higher rate of tax, not as we have at present a regressive taxation system, where the rich pay less tax than the poor, where a banker in the City of London pays less tax than the cleaner who cleans his office.

We need to hit hard, the tax-dodgers.

We need to move away from a tax on personal income, to a tax on corporations, a tax on resource depletion, a tax on waste generation, a tax on pollution.

Too many are currently getting a free ride. When the rich dodge tax, they are getting a free ride. When corporations externalise their costs, pollute our air water, destroy our natural resources, exploit the poor, they are getting a free ride

At a recent meeting at Davos, Bill Gates, one of the richest men on the planet, argued vociferously for not increasing minimum wage.

The prevailing theory is trickle down. The poor sit below the rich man’s table, and if they are lucky, a few crumbs fall off the table.

At times of growth, everyone sees an increase, the rich a lot, the poor a little, but that little, is enough to keep the poor oppressed.

When there is zero growth the rich still get fatter, leaving less of the pie for the rest of us.

During the recession, there has not been the mass layoffs we have seen in the past. That is because productivity has gone down, there is a lowering of demand, the workers still employed are put on short shifts, reduced hours, paid less. One reason why wages are shrinking.

There has been a increase in jobs, but these have been McJobs, mind-numbing de-skilled, low-wages, part time, temporary, zero hours jobs.

The wealth creators, the job creators, are the small companies, the ones who do not have the political clout.

The big companies destroy jobs. Each time they destroy jobs, their share price rises, more for me, less for you.

Wages at Walmart, McDonald’s are so low, they have to be subsidised by the state. Yet another mechanism to transfer wealth from the poor to the rich. Companies that argue they cannot remain in businesses without paying low wages, do not deserve to remain in businesses.

There is though a flaw in the argument put forward by Nick Hanauer, that of continued growth.

The society Nick Hanauer describes has been true for some time, certainly the post war period when we saw real growth, car manufactures for example, would pride themselves that they paid their workers a decent wage, such that they could afford the cars they made. This is no longer true.

The reason it is no longer true, is that we have hit the limits of growth. Banks have been criticised for not lending to businesses, but when banks are looking for a return of 10% or more, they are not going to lend when the economy is not growing.

We have exhausted what we can loot from the commons then sell back.

Nick Hanauer hints but no more, at the gift economy. He dismisses the rationale actor, out to maximise self interest, more for me is less for you, and says we are irrational, emotional, that we reciprocate.

An economy where we reciprocate is the gift economy, the sharing economy, where we all contribute to the commons, more for me becomes more for you.

He is also compares the economy with an ecosystem, where we have closed loops, feedback. On a finite planet, an economic system, has to be embedded within the planetary ecosystem, a part of Gaia, not apart from Gaia.

We cannot have unlimited growth, unlimited growth is where a cell becomes cancerous.

We are moving increasingly towards a Police State, in a crude attempt to maintain inequality.

Why has the Mayor of London decided he needs water cannon on the streets of London? You do not need water cannon for happy people?

Nick Hanauer was one of the first private investors in Amazon, he co-founded a company which was sold to MicroSoft for $6.4 billions, he together with his friends owns a bank. He has his own yacht, a private plane. He was co-author of The Gardens of Democracy. He was also instrumental in pushing for an increase in the minimum wage in Seattle.

18 pubs a week are closing. It is not tax, it is not a ban on smoking that is killing ours pubs, it is greedy pubcos who are screwing pub landlords and forcing them out of business, then selling off the site for redevelopment.

The Tumbledown Dick, a c 1720s coaching inn, is one of many pubs facing destruction, destruction by greed.

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) reported a £5.2 billion loss as it announced its annual results today The bank’s boss Stephen Hester is four years into his original five-year plan to bring RBS back on track – yet things don’t seem to be getting much better for the publicly owned bank. RBS blames a year of heavy fines. But let’s just remind ourselves of what these fines were:

PPI: The bank knowingly mis-sold its customers insurance which they neither needed nor could use, over a period of years. Fine: £2.2 billion

Bankers this year have been rewarded for doing a ‘good job’. Bonus pot: £600,000 million.

Some pretty significant figures that the bank should never have been in a position to pay.

If the RBS was really making headway to being sustainable and acting in the interest of us and its shareholders, we would surely expect a much stronger annual report, and a move towards investments only in sustainable projects.

Hester is quoted on the BBC website this morning as saying “…my job is [to] deliver an RBS that other investors want to own shares in…” This is true, but he must also remember that RBS is still owned by UK taxpayers and it is also his job to ensure that the bank is cleaned up and takes good care of our investment. Stopping defrauding us, manipulating us, lying to us and trashing our climate and environment would certainly be a good place to start. Hester has a lot of ground to cover in the final year of his plan.

In their greed to get into a Wal-Mart store, not panic to get out of a burning building, shoppers trampled to death a Wal-Mart employee.

How debased have human beings become?

In Bangladesh, a sweatshop factory has caught fire killing over 100 workers. It was making clothes for Wal-Mart.

Only a few weeks ago, a sweatshop in Bangladesh or Pakistan caught fire. Who were they producing for?

Fatal fires are commonplace in sweatshops in Bangladesh.

Gap, Wal-Mart they know the conditions of sweatshops, but they choose to turn a blind eye.

Since 2006, more than 500 Bangladeshi workers have died in sweatshop fires.

Tensions have been running high between workers, who have been demanding an increase in minimum wages, and the factory owners and government. A union organizer, Aminul Islam, who campaigned for better working conditions and higher wages, was found tortured and killed outside Dhaka this year.

We were told doubling the capacity of Farnborough Airport was good for business. We were told it was good for the surrounding area. Not the views of those who live in the surrounding area, who value their quality of life. Not good for the nearby towns of Farnborough and Aldershot, both of which lie semi-derelict, though that owes as much to greedy developers and bad planning. Expansion of Farnborough Airport is good for Saudi-owned TAG Aviation, owners and operators of Farnborough. [see Farnborough Airport News]

Farnborough Airport was never going to be good for the local economy, as it is not a major employer. It lacks shops, customs, baggage handling, immigration control. At an average occupancy rate of 2.5 passengers per flight it is extremely bad for the environment.

HS2 we are told is good for business. There are even figures to show, it will shave 25 minutes off the journey time for businessmen travelling between London and Birmingham, as they will be the only ones using HS2. Not sure why anyone would wish to visit Birmingham, let alone get there 25 minutes sooner. Though I guess it may be an advantage to get away 25 minutes quicker.

High Speed trains are not good for the environment, major polluters. The scheme is simply an opportunity for the construction industry to make money. If there is money for investment in rail, then invest it in the rail network in order that we may all benefit.

Crossrail will link east and west London. An excellent idea, but that is not why it is being built. It is being built to provide the City of London with a fast connection to Heathrow. Once again the taxpayer is being asked to subsidise the City of London. If the City of London wants a fast link to Heathrow, then the City of London should pay for it.

Thames Estuary Airport is the latest White Elephant. Again we are told good for businessmen, expanding airport capacity is good for business. We are told Heathrow lacks the capacity, lacks the destinations of other airports. Not true, but when has the truth ever got in the way when fast bucks are to be made?

London airports have 1113 departure flights to key business destinations compared with Paris 499, Frankfurt 443, and Amsterdam 282. Heathrow has 990 departure flights each week to the world’s key business centres – Charles de Gaulle 484 and Frankfurt 450.

Will aviation expand at the projected rate? Highly unlikely as flights will become too expensive as airlines are forced to pay their true environmental costs and the cost of fuel rockets.

Airports are not only a cost to private developers, it is the public purse that pays for the surrounding infrastructure.

Thames Estuary Airport would mean the closure of Heathrow, possibly Gatwick too. Massive loss of capital investment, not just Heathrow, but all the surrounding businesses. Massive unemployment west London.

Quality of life is a major determinant when people decide where they wish to live. London fails miserably. Expanding aviation would only make the quality of life worse.

London ranks 25 on a table of air pollution for European cities. Mercer’s Worldwide Quality of Living Survey 2011 placed London in 38th place (out of 221 cities), behind Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam.

I warned people to avoid London during the Olympics, avoid London end of July, all of August and early September. It will be hell in London. The transport system cannot cope now. Roads are to be hijacked for exclusive Olympic use. I am pleased to say people heeded my advice. London will be a no-go area for tourists, hotels will sit half empty.

Across the country town and city centres have been destroyed by developers out to make a fast buck and corrupt planners in their pockets. Good for business we are told. Good for greedy developers, good for High Street retailers, but not good for communities who see their towns laid waste, not good for local communities who see the wealth of the community leached out, not good for those who lose their livelihood and jobs when local businesses close.

In Lincoln, Sincil Street all that is left of character in the market area is due for destruction.

There are exceptions. Communities are saying enough is enough. We are no longer going to be walked all over by Big Business and corrupt politicians.

The Victorian Queen’s Market at Upton Park in London, one of the few remaining traditional East End London markets, was due for destruction. It has been saved, the developer St Modwen driven out of town.

Across the country traditional markets are being destroyed, bastardised and yuppified. Queen’s Market is one of the few remaining London east end markets. It was under threat when the mayor got into bed with property developer St Modwen who have track record of trashing town town centres (eg Farnborough and Hatfield), it was to be destroyed for a supermarket, but after a six year fight, Friends of Queen’s Market have sent St Modwen’s packing with their corporate tail between their legs. Remaining is to be answered is how much taxpayers money has the mayor wasted on this ill-thought-out scheme? He and the councillors who backed him should be surcharged and made personally bankrupt to recover ever last penny.

The irony is that those towns that have retained their traditional markets are thriving, the markets major tourist attractions. But that does not provide development opportunities, enable fast bucks to be made.

Bury Market in Lancashire – 300 stalls, a quarter of a million visitors every day! The success of Bury Market is down to two factors, quality stalls selling quality products and that the market worked with the local council to a common ethos, a common agenda.

We can have development, but it has to be sustainable development, development that is good for people and planet. Good for businesses had to be consigned to the dustbin of history. Anyone remember, one for the road, an extra pint before driving off from the pub?